SVSU students power up vehicle with wind, solar project

Rebecca Craig | Times PhotoRon Allison, Dr. Russ Clark, Ben Weihl, Paul Miller and Jason Gerard are part of a team of SVSU engineers who received a $9,777 grant to build a wind and solar station that charges an electric golf cart.

Saginaw Valley State University is looking to the sky to operate some of its campus vehicles.

Four students are building a wind and solar charging station for an electric golf cart used to run to and from the university greenhouse.

"The eventual goal is to have multiple stations around campus," said Russ Clark, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Clark hopes to someday power up to 10 more small vehicles on campus with renewable energy, "so we're not putting out greenhouse gases and we're not getting electricity from coal-fired power plants," Clark said.

The four students - Jason Gerard, 28, of Bay City; Paul Miller, 23, of Saginaw Township; Ben Weihl, 36, of Midland, and Ron Allison, 47, of Clio - have received close to $10,000 for the project.

The money came from SVSU's Student Research and Creativity Institute. All the students are seniors studying electrical engineering.

"I think it's pretty awesome," Gerard said. "I think it marks a transition that's going to need to be made to get away from coal-fired energy production."

The first station will be built in the next few weeks at the university greenhouse on North Michigan Avenue near Pierce Road.

The station will consist of a 6-by-8 foot wooden shed fitted with four solar panels, totaling 800 watts, and a 400-watt wind turbine standing about 12 feet tall with 46-inch diameter blades. The unit also will be fitted with a bank of eight, 6-volt batteries to store energy when it's not being used.

"It's going to be a true off-grid system," Weihl said.

The students plan to have the station ready by April 25 for a project symposium at the university.

The station will be mobile, with a collapsible turbine mast, so it can be shown off at various events.

When finished, students will be able to plug the golf cart into an outlet, just like one on a wall.

Clark said he's been thinking about the idea for more than a year. It started when gas was $4 a gallon. The equipment has already been delivered; the solar cells came from Florida and the wind turbine came from Minnesota, the students said.

Plugging the golf cart in every night should give it the sufficient energy needed to make its normal runs of two-to-three hours a day, Clark said. There may even be electricity left over to help power the greenhouse, Weihl said.

SVSU has two other electric golf carts that could be charged with other stations, and eight small gas-powered vehicles that could be converted to run on electricity, Clark said.

He plans to refine the station design with other students, and look into horizontal windmills for the future stations, which spin like a top as opposed to traditional, vertical turbines.

The station should be up to 40 percent efficient, the students said.

But that's a bit of a misnomer.

"We're getting it from wasted energy, something that wouldn't be used in the first place," Clark said.